


The Tremor Becomes a Quake

by Bluehaven4220



Series: Benton Fraser and Kelly McShane: The Never Ending Why [2]
Category: due South
Genre: Confessions, F/M, Friendship, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-27 02:03:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5029447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluehaven4220/pseuds/Bluehaven4220
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kelly McShane is close to revealing a long kept secret, and Benton Fraser is willing to listen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tremor Becomes a Quake

**Author's Note:**

> A companion piece to "The Fragile Kingdom Fold", set when Ben has graduated from the Academy and comes to see Kelly before he's transferred. Please feel free to comment, the door is always open.

The first time he heard that sound, it broke his heart.

It tore at him. The sound at first would be like a wounded animal struggling to breathe, but then it would give to gentle sobs, and then it would stop. When she would emerge, he could see the evidence of it on her face, her smudged makeup and red-rimmed eyes, but there was silence between the two of them, for he never asked why.

Then they had met _them_. Benton for the third time, and his best friend Kelly McShane the first.

She’d been extraordinarily brave, but when he’d been able apprehend them with Diefenbaker’s help, they’d gone back to his cabin. She’d crouched in the corner, her head lowered into the top of her knees, her entire body shaking.

He approached her silently, bending down to his haunches, steadying himself before saying anything else.

“Kelly?”

She looked up at him at the sound of her name.

“Benton…” her lower lip quivering, “I…” she couldn’t even finish her sentence. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried desperately to pretend she could block out the memory running through her head.

“Oh…” he sat down beside her and brought her close. He said nothing, just held her. She had always been running, and now he realized, she was slowly losing whatever spark had been there before.

“Benton, I…” she broke completely. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she sobbed into his chest, gripping his shirt as though it were a lifeline.

He cradled her like he would’ve a child. At this point he was her friend, the only lifeline she had, and she needed him as such. He had never seen her so helpless.

“This is not the Kelly McShane I know,” he released her and took hold of her hand, gently running his fingertips over the top of them. “What’s happened?”

“It took all I had not to give up and die, getting the little guy back to his parents…” she choked. “Now I… I can’t do it, Benton, I just can’t.”

“What can’t you do?”

“Louis Buchanan… he…”

“What did he do to you?” He found this part of the conversation kind of odd, considering that was not whom they’d faced. No, instead she’d just helped him save a young boy from drowning at the hands of a man who had kidnapped him from his village three days earlier. They’d forced their way into his compound and rescued the little boy, named Simon, who had clung to Kelly for dear life until Ben had been able to subdue the man and arrest him. He’d carried the man back to the station, and Kelly had held Simon in her arms, telling stories and singing lullabies until they’d been able to get him back to his family.

“He… I… lost…” she gulped, staring at her hands.

Benton gripped her hand in a gesture of reassurance.

“Do I have to say it? Surely you know what I mean.” She could hear the silence swelling between them, and it was louder than any amount of shouting.

“No, you don’t need to, but I can tell you want to,” Benton answered, sitting down in front of her, making her look him in the eyes.

“But… but if I do…”

The tears were welling again. Undeterred, he gave her a small smile and touched her forehead to his.

“You’d think less of me,” she whispered.

Now _this_ was where he realized she was truly lost to grief and panic. The Kelly McShane he knew would never have said such a thing. With or without permission, she’d be target shooting, jumping off of snow piles and climbing rock faces, making stupid jokes and laughing, just because she could. Never would she have thought something so irrational.

“No, Kelly, never…” his hand now moved to cup her cheek. “Tell me, what did he do to you?”

“He was my first.” She said it so quickly it sounded more like _Hewasmyfirst._

Benton cringed inside. Of course! She’d not been shouting ‘Get it off of me’ in the shower a few days earlier; it had been ‘get _him_ off of me’.

Disgusting reprobate… he’d have done the same thing if he were in Kelly’s shoes.

Kissing her temple quickly, he sat beside her, cradling her as he had before.

“I’m sorry Benton,” she managed as her breathing began to slow.

“Why should you apologize to me, Kelly?” he answered. “If he did not force you, it’s not my business.”

And that’s when he saw it, the way her head turned just so, and her lips met his briefly. It was barely there, feather light, and then her arms went around his neck holding him to her, if only to keep him connected to her for a little while longer.

“That’s why,” she told him, letting go and getting up, retreating to find a place to pull herself together.

Silently, he went back to rearranging his meager collection of books. There was a strange comfort in having books with you wherever you went. He’d learned that from his grandparents. No matter how difficult life could be, you always had something that could transport you to another place, another time, without you leaving the room.

It was too quiet in the cabin now, as though the beast that had reared its ugly head after she’d confessed to him had gone back into its hiding place. But somehow it made sure to tell him it was still there, waiting for him.

“Kelly?” he called.

No answer.

He placed the last book back on a shelf and went to find her. He knew his home and property inside and out, and frankly he was beginning to think she did as well. He searched for well over a half hour, finally finding her in the upstairs bedroom, busying herself with filling page after page of her journal with any and all sorts of writing.

She was so focused on her work she didn’t even turn when he entered the room.

“You’re a hard woman to find…” he quipped.

“Thanks Einstein,” she answered, not turning from her work, trying to force her confession and the tension in the room out of her head.

“I’m not that smart…” he told her. “He could change the world with a single word or equation. All I’ve got is being clever, and my work. If I’m not careful it could make me go insane.”

“Yeah, don’t care, you’re already insane,” she answered. "You'd have to be, to want to stay up here."

He went to her side and leaned on the wooden table. “Look at me…”

She didn’t answer, her ballpoint pen continuing to the bottom of the page.

"Kelly, look at me," he repeated, as though he were speaking to a lover.

She complied. There was a steeled look in her eyes, her shoulders were tensed and her expression paled. She looked almost lifeless.

“I feel dirty, Benton,” she admitted.

“Oh my dear…” he whispered, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“It was a stupid thing to do, such a _stupid_ thing to do… when it was over I threw up. It was the things he’d said while we were in bed, the feeling of his body on me, like I can't get clean no matter how much I shower. God, I’m such an idiot.” She cleared her throat and refocused, turning the page, chewing the end of her pen. “Still, it is what it is. I made my bed, and I have to lie in it.”

“Not if it hurts you this badly,” he put a hand over hers, marveling at the stark contrast between the two of them.

“Benton…” she breathed, sighing at the feeling of his hand on hers.

“Yes?” he turned to look at her.

“I’m sorry.”

His brow arched.

“For kissing you,” she clarified, pulling her hand out from under his and looking at her shoes. “It was wrong, I was angry, I needed someone. Oh whatever… any excuse I could give is redundant. The point is I’m sorry.”

He gave her a smile, and moved toward her. Taking her chin in his hand, he lifted her chin so she looked him in the eyes.

“You deserve more than anything Louis Buchanan could have ever given you, his criminal status and subsequent imprisonment notwithstanding,” he told her. “The scoundrel treated you horribly, to take that from you so young.”

“It wasn’t as though he forced me, I wanted it as much as he did.”

“That may be, but he should know the difference between hormones and what’s right and wrong.”

“I was the same age as he was,” she reminded him. “I just didn't know enough to set clear boundaries."

"He didn't hurt you, did he?"

"No, I'm just ashamed I ever fell for his charms," she admitted, running a hand through her hair. "Don’t tell me you’ve never made a mistake.”

“Plenty of them.”

“Well giving him my virginity was one of mine,” she spat, suddenly angry at the fact. “You know, I wonder…”

“What’s that?”

“Perhaps the next time he’s up for parole, I can cut his nuts off with a rusty knife and then run the other way.”

Benton chuckled. “And just what would that accomplish?”

“I’d feel better, knowing he’d feel like less of a man for being unable to satisfy another woman if he ever took her to bed,” Kelly told her.

“Is it really worth the risk?” he asked with a sad, almost ironic shake to his head. “You and I both know how dangerous he is, even if he is locked up for the rest of his life. If push ever came to shove, I’d help you find a way to make peace with it and move on.”

She frowned. “Thanks, that takes all the fun out of it…” She put her pen down and closed the notebook, her entire body shaking with emotion, and, if she were honest, something more.

“Why don’t you feel safe?”

“I never said that,” she answered.

“Ah yes, but there’s something…” he gently took her hand and made her put her pen down, closing the notebook. “Something in your eyes…”

She allowed herself to be led from the upstairs bedroom, and out into the corridor. Neutral territory, it seemed. He was not invading her space and she was nowhere near his room. He still kept her at arm’s length, however, searching her expression for any sort of clue.

That was when she took the opportunity to close the gap between them.

He saw it happening, her head turned slightly…

He pressed an index finger to her lips, stopping her in her tracks.

“Gently, Kelly…” he brought his finger to the crown of her head and traced her hairline, down her cheek and along her jaw line. “Gentle…”

Smiling slightly, his lips met hers in a chaste but tender kiss. The tip of her tongue ran along his lower lip, searching. A thrill of ego when he reciprocated…

And with that, he pulled away, touching his forehead to hers.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

It was then he realized all she had needed was to feel wanted and respected. She’d needed to know she was important, that _he_ needed her.

And truth be told, he did.

 


End file.
